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Social Psychology

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Title: Social Psychology


1
Social Psychology
  • Psychology A Concise Introduction2nd Edition
  • Richard Griggs
  • Chapter 9

Prepared byJ. W. Taylor V
2
Social Psychology
  • The scientific study of how we influence one
    anothers behavior and thinking
  • Social psychologys focus is on how situational
    forces influence our behavior and thinking

3
The Journey
  • How Others Influence Our Behavior
  • How We Think about Our Own and Others Behavior

4
How Others Influence Our Behavior
  • Why We Conform
  • Why We Comply
  • Why We Obey
  • How Groups Influence Us

5
Social Influence
  • Examines how other people and the social forces
    they create influence an individuals behavior

6
Why We Conform
  • Conformity is defined as a change in behavior,
    belief, or both to conform to a group norm as a
    result of real or imagined group pressure
  • Although conformity has negative connotations
    in Western cultures, some conformity is needed
    for society to function
  • For instance, in the military, conformity is
    essential because in a time of war, soldiers
    cannot each do his or her own thing while in
    battle

7
Why We Conform
Informational Social Influence
NormativeSocialInfluence
SituationalFactors
8
The Sherif Study and Informational Social
Influence
  • Participants, who thought they were in a visual
    perception experiment, were placed in a
    completely dark room and exposed to a stationary
    point of light, and their task was to estimate
    the distance this light moved
  • The light never moved it was an illusion called
    the autokinetic effect, whereby a stationary
    point of light appears to move in a dark room
    because there is no frame of reference and our
    eyes spontaneously move

9
The Sherif Study and Informational Social
Influence
  • During the first session, each participant was
    alone in the dark room when making their
    judgments
  • But during the next three sessions, they were in
    the room with two other participants and could
    hear each others estimates of the illusory light
    movement
  • The average individual estimates varied greatly
    during the first session
  • During the next three sessions, though, the
    individual estimates converged on a common group
    norm
  • A year later, participants were brought back and
    made estimates alone yet, these estimates
    remained at the group norm

10
The Sherif Study and Informational Social
Influence
  • This pattern of results suggests the impact of
    informational social influence, which is
    influence that stems from our desire to be
    correct in situations in which the correct action
    of judgment is uncertain and we need information
  • When a task is ambiguous or difficult and we want
    to be correct, we look to others for information
  • For instance, when visiting a foreign culture, it
    is usually a good idea to watch how the people
    living in that culture behave in various
    situations because they provide information to
    outsiders on how to behave in that culture

11
The Asch Study and Normative Social Influence
  • In Aschs study, the visual judgments were easy
    visual discriminations involving line-length
    judgments
  • Specifically, participants had to judge which one
    of three lines was the same length as a standard
    line
  • In this study, the correct answer/behavior was
    obvious
  • Indeed, when making such judgments alone, almost
    no one made any mistakes

12
An Example of Aschs Line-Length Judgment Task
13
The Asch Study and Normative Social Influence
  • In Aschs study, there were other participants
    who were in fact experimental confederates, part
    of the experimental setting
  • On each trial, judgments were made orally, and
    Asch structured the situation so the experimental
    confederates responded before the true
    participant
  • These experimental confederates arranged to make
    mistakes on certain trials in an effort to see
    how the real participant would respond when
    asked to make line length judgments

14
The Asch Study and Normative Social Influence
  • About 75 of the participants gave an obviously
    wrong answer at least once, and overall,
    conformity occurred 37 of the time
  • This conformity occurred despite the fact the
    correct answer, unlike in Sherifs study, was
    obvious

15
The Asch Study and Normative Social Influence
  • Aschs results illustrate the power of normative
    social influence, influence stemming from our
    desire to gain the approval and to avoid the
    disapproval of other people
  • In essence, we change our behavior to meet the
    expectations of others and to gain the
    acceptance of others
  • If the line-length judgments were extremely
    difficult, and the correct answers were not
    clear, then informational social influence would
    likely lead to even higher levels of conformity

16
Situational Factors that Impact Conformity
  • If the group is unanimous, conformity will
    increase
  • Asch found that the amount of conformity
    decreased considerably if just one of the
    experimental confederate participants gives the
    correct answer, or even an incorrect answer that
    is different from the incorrect answer all other
    confederates gave
  • As one person is different somehow, it allows
    other people to avoid conforming.

17
Situational Factors that Impact Conformity
  • The mode of responding is also critical
  • Secret ballots lead to less conformity than
    public, verbal reports
  • The status of group members intervenes
  • More conformity is observed from a person that is
    of lesser status than the other group members or
    is attracted to the group and wants to be part of
    it

18
Why We Comply
  • Compliance is acting in accordance to a direct
    request from another person or group
  • Occurs in many facets of life (e.g., salespeople,
    fundraisers, politicians, and anyone else who
    wants to get people to say yes to their
    requests)

19
Compliance Techniques
Foot-in-the-door
Door-in-the-face
Low-ball
Thats-not-all
20
The Foot-in-the-Door Technique
  • Here, compliance to a large request is gained by
    prefacing it with a very small, almost mindless
    request
  • The tendency is for people who have complied with
    the small request to comply with the next, larger
    request
  • In Freedman and Frasers (1966) classic study,
    some people were asked directly to put a large
    ugly sign urging careful driving in their front
    yards
  • Almost all such people refused the large ugly
    sign
  • However, some other people were first asked to
    sign a petition urging careful driving
  • Two weeks after signing this petition (that is,
    agreeing to a rather small request), the majority
    of these latter people agreed to allow the large
    ugly sign in the front yards

21
The Foot-in-the-Door Technique
  • This technique seems to work because our behavior
    (complying with the initial request) affects our
    attitudes, leading us to be more positive about
    helping and to view ourselves as generally
    charitable people
  • In addition, once we have made a commitment
    (such as signing a safe driving petition), we
    feel pressure to remain consistent (by putting
    up the large ugly sign) with the earlier action

22
The Foot-in-the-Door Technique
  • The technique was used by the Communist Chinese
    in the Korean War on prisoners of war
  • Many prisoners returning home after the war
    praised the Chinese Communists because while in
    captivity, the prisoners did small things such as
    writing out questions and then providing the
    pro-Communist answers, which often they just
    copied from a notebook
  • Such minor actions induced more sympathy for the
    Communist cause

23
The Door-in-the-Face Technique
  • The opposite of the foot-in-the-door technique
  • Compliance is gained by starting with a large
    unreasonable request that is turned down, and
    then following it with a more reasonable smaller
    request
  • It is the smaller request that the person making
    the two requests wants someone to comply with

24
The Door-in-the-Face Technique
  • For instance, a teenager may ask his parents if
    he can have a new sports car for his 16th
    birthday
  • His parents are likely to refuse
  • Then, the teenager asks his parents to help him
    pay for a used 20-year-old car, which is what he
    wanted his parents to help him with all along

25
The Door-in-the-Face Technique
  • The success of the door-in-the-face technique is
    due to our tendency toward reciprocity, that is,
    making mutual concessions
  • The person making the requests appears to have
    made a concession by moving to the much smaller
    request so shouldnt we reciprocate and comply
    with this smaller request?

26
The Low-Ball Technique
  • Compliance to a costly request is achieved by
    first getting compliance to an attractive, less
    costly request, but then reneging on it
  • This is similar to the foot-in-the-door technique
    in that a second larger request is the one
    desired all along
  • Low-balling works because many of us feel
    obligated to go through with the deal after we
    have agreed to the earlier request, even if the
    first request has changed for the worse
  • We want to remain consistent in our actions

27
The Thats-Not-All Technique
  • People are more likely to comply to a request
    after a build-up to make the request sound
    better
  • Often in infomercials on TV, for example, the
    announcer says But wait, thats not all, theres
    more! and the price is lowered or more
    merchandise is added to sweeten the deal, usually
    before you even have a chance to respond
  • Similarly, a car salesperson is likely to throw
    in additional options as bonuses before you can
    answer yes or no to a price offered

28
The Thats-Not-All Technique
  • As in the door-in-the-face technique, reciprocity
    is at work
  • The seller has done you a favor (thrown in bonus
    options, lowered the price), so you should
    reciprocate by accepting the offer (i.e., comply)

29
Four Compliance Techniques
30
Why We Obey
  • Obedience is following the commands of a person
    in authority
  • Obedience is good in some instances, such as
    obeying societal laws
  • Obedience is bad in other instances, such as in
    the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, when
    American soldiers were ordered to shoot innocent
    villagers (and they did so)

31
Why We Obey
MilgramsExperiment
The Astroten Study
SituationalFactors
32
Milgrams Basic Experimental Paradigm
  • Stanley Milgrams obedience studies were done
    primarily at Yale University in the early 1960s
  • Imagine that you have volunteered to be in an
    experiment on learning and memory
  • You show up at the assigned time and place, and
    there is the experimenter and another participant
    there

33
Milgrams Basic Experimental Paradigm
  • The experimenter tells you both that the study is
    examining the effects of punishment by electric
    shock on learning, and specifically learning a
    list of word pairs
  • One of the participants will be the teacher and
    the other participants will be the learner
  • You draw slips for these roles, and you draw the
    slip of the teacher, so the other participant
    will be the learner

34
Milgrams Basic Experimental Paradigm
  • You accompany the learner to an adjoining room
    where he is strapped into a chair with one arm
    hooked up to the shock generator in the other
    room
  • The shock levels in the study range from 15
    volts to 450 volts
  • The experimenter gives you, the teacher, a
    test shock of 45 volts so that you know how
    intense various shock levels will be

35
Milgrams Basic Experimental Paradigm
  • You return to your room with the shock generator
  • You notice that on the shock generator, each
    switch has a label for each level of shock,
    starting at 15 volts and going to 450 volts in
    15-volt increments
  • There are also some verbal labels below the
    switches, Slight Shock, Very Strong Shock,
    Danger Severe Shock, and under the last two
    switches XXX in red.
  • Each time the learner makes a mistake, he is to
    receive a shock, which should increase one
    15-volt level for each additional mistake

36
Milgrams Basic Experimental Paradigm
  • As the experiment begins, the learner makes some
    mistakes, and you as the teacher throw the shock
    lever as instructed by the experimenter
  • At 120 volts, the learner cries out that the
    shocks really hurt
  • As the learner continues to make mistakes, he
    protests and says that he has a heart condition
    and that he refuses to continue with the
    experiment, demanding to be let out of his chair
  • After a 330-volt shock, he fails to respond with
    any protest
  • You turn to the experimenter to see what to do,
    and the experimenter says to treat no response as
    an incorrect response and continue with the
    experiment

37
Milgrams Initial Obedience Finding
  • Before this experiment was run, Milgram asked
    various types of people what they and other
    people would do
  • Most people thought people would stop at
    relatively low shock levels
  • Psychiatrists said that maybe one person in a
    thousand would go to the end of the shock
    generator

38
Milgrams Initial Obedience Findings
  • In reality, almost two out of every three
    participants (65) continued to obey the
    experimenter and administered the maximum
    possible shock of 450 volts
  • This is particularly disturbing because the
    learner had mentioned a heart condition before
    the experiment started and during his protests
  • It is important to realize that the learner was a
    confederate who was programmed to make mistakes
    and was never really shocked
  • But the teacher thought that he was administering
    real shocks because of real mistakes

39
InterpretingMilgrams Findings
  • The difference between what we say we will do and
    what we actually do illustrates the power of
    situational social forces on our behavior
  • The foot-in-the-door technique was used because
    participants started off giving very mild shocks
    (15 volts) and increased the voltage relatively
    slowly
  • The learner did not protest these early shocks,
    and the teacher had obeyed several times before
    the learner started his protests

40
InterpretingMilgrams Findings
  • It should be noted that later studies with
    female participants found similar obedience
    rates, and other researchers have replicated
    Milgrams basic finding in many different
    cultures (e.g., Jordan, Spain, Italy, and
    Australia)

41
Situational Factors that Impact Obedience
  • The physical presence of the experimenter (the
    person with authority)
  • If the experimenter left the room and gave
    commands over the telephone, maximum obedience
    (administering the highest shock level) dropped
    to 21
  • The physical closeness of teacher and learner
  • Milgram made the teacher and learner closer by
    having them both in the same room instead of
    different rooms, and maximum obedience declined
    to 40
  • It dropped to 30 when the teacher had to
    directly administer the shock by forcing the
    learners hand onto a plate

42
Situational Factors that Impact Obedience
  • Setting of the study
  • Instead of conducting the research at prestigious
    Yale University, Milgram did the study in a
    run-down office building in Bridgeport,
    Connecticut
  • Here, he found a 48 obedience rate thus, the
    setting did not influence obedience as much as
    presence of the experimenter or closeness of the
    teacher and learner
  • Experimenter unanimity
  • Milgram set up a situation with two experimenters
    who at some point during the experiment disagreed
  • One said to stop the experimenter, while the
    other said to continue
  • In this case, when one of the people in authority
    said to stop, all of the teachers stopped
    delivering the shocks

43
Situational Factors that Impact Obedience
  • Teacher responsibility
  • In another variation, Milgram had the teacher
    only push the switch on the shock generator to
    indicate to another teacher (an experimental
    confederate) in the room with the learner how
    much shock to administer
  • Here, 93 of the participants obeyed the
    experimenter to the maximum shock levels

44
Results for Some of Milgrams Experimental
Conditions
45
The Astroten Study
  • Participants were real nurses on duty alone in a
    real hospital ward
  • Each nurse received a call from a person using
    the name of a staff doctor not personally known
    by the nurse
  • The doctor ordered the nurse to give a dose
    exceeding the maximum daily dosage of an
    unauthorized medication, called Astroten to a
    real patient in the ward

46
The Astroten Study
  • This situation violated many hospital rules
  • Medication orders need to be given in person and
    not over the phone
  • It was a clear overdose
  • The medication was unauthorized
  • Of the 22 nurses phoned, 21 did not question the
    order and went to give the medication, but were
    intercepted before actually giving it to the
    patient

47
The Astroten Study
  • A separate sample of 33 nurses were asked about
    this situation and what they would do if they
    were placed it in
  • All but 2 said they would NOT obey the doctors
    order, again demonstrating the difference between
    what we think we will do and what we actually do
    in a given situation

48
The Jonestown Massacre
  • In 1978, more than 900 people who were members of
    Reverend Jim Joness religious cult in Jonestown,
    Guyana committed mass suicide by drinking
    cyanide-laced Kool Aid
  • These were Americans who moved to South America
    from San Francisco in 1977
  • Using various compliance techniques, Jones
    developed unquestioned faith as the cult leader
    and discouraged individualism

49
The Jonestown Massacre
  • Using the foot-in-the-door technique, he was able
    to increase financial support required of each
    member until they had turned over essentially
    everything they owned
  • He had recruiters ask people walking by to help
    the poor
  • When they refused, the recruiters then asked them
    just to donate five minutes of time to put
    letters in envelopes (door-in-the-face)
  • When given information about other charitable
    work, having agreed to this small task, people
    returned later as a function of the consistency
    aspect of the foot-in-the-door technique
  • Informational social influence was also at work,
    as being moved from San Francisco to Guyana
    created an uncertain environment in which
    followers would look to others to guide their own
    actions

50
How Groups Influence Us
SocialFacilitation
SocialLoafing
BystanderEffect
Deindivi-duation
GroupPolarization
51
Social Facilitation
  • The emergence of a dominant response on a task
    (for which a person is individually responsible)
    due to social arousal, leading to improvement on
    simple or well-learned tasks and worse
    performance on complex or unlearned tasks when
    other people are present
  • This effect occurs because that the presence of
    others increases physiological arousal, and under
    conditions of increased arousal, people tend to
    give whatever response is most dominant

52
Social Facilitation
  • For example, for a professional basketball
    player, shooting free throws is a simple, easy
    task
  • Thus, such a person would shoot free throws
    better when other people are around and watching
    than when shooting alone
  • However, for someone not good at shooting a
    basketball, s/he will shoot even more poorly when
    other people are around and watching than when
    shooting alone

53
Social Loafing and the Diffusion of
Responsibility
  • Social loafing occurs when people are pooling
    their efforts to achieve a common goal
  • It is the tendency for people to exert less
    effort when working toward a common goal in a
    group than when individually accountable

54
Social Loafing and the Diffusion of
Responsibility
  • A major reason why social loafing occurs is the
    diffusion of responsibility, which means that the
    responsibility for a task is spread across all
    members of the group so individual accountability
    is lessened
  • The larger the group, the less likely it is that
    a social loafer will be detected and the more
    responsibility for the task gets diffused across
    group members
  • However, for groups in which individual
    contributions are identifiable and evaluated,
    social loafing decreases

55
Social Loafing and the Diffusion of
Responsibility
  • For instance, in a group project for a shared
    grade, social loafing would decrease if each
    group member is assigned and responsible for a
    specific part of the project

56
The Bystander Effect
  • In 1964, Kitty Genovese was returning home from
    work late one night when she was attacked in
    front of her apartment building
  • She screamed for help, and many apartment
    residents, at least 38 of them, heard her cries
    for help and looked out their windows
  • The attacker fled, but no one intervened
  • The attacker returned and continued his assault
    for another 35 minutes before finally murdering
    her
  • The first person in the apartment complex did not
    call the police until after Kitty had been killed

57
The Bystander Effect
  • Many media people said this incident illustrated
    big city apathy
  • However, experiments by social psychologists
    suggested that it was more diffusion of
    responsibility
  • The bystander effect holds that the probability
    of an individual helping in an emergency is
    greater when there is only one bystander than
    when there are many bystanders

58
The Bystander Effect
  • Darley and Latané (1968) did an experiment in
    which college students were ostensibly going to
    participate in a round-robin discussion of
    college adjustment problems, and that this
    discussion would occur over an intercom system
  • Thus, participants could only hear each other,
    not see each other
  • The experimenter says he will not listen to the
    conversation so participants wont feel at all
    inhibited

59
The Bystander Effect
  • After each student gets a turn to talk, the first
    student gets to talk again, but he seems to be
    very anxious
  • Suddenly, he starts having a seizure and cries
    out for help
  • What would a participant do in this situation?

60
The Bystander Effect
  • Whether or not a participant helped depended on
    how many other individuals the participant
    thought were available to help the student having
    the seizure
  • The researchers manipulated the number of other
    people present (either 0, 1 or 4 others present)
  • In reality no one else was present, the supposed
    other participants were merely tape recordings
  • When no one else was thought to be present, 85
    of the participants tried to help the person,
    whereas only 31 of the participants did so when
    4 other people were supposedly present

61
The Bystander Effect
  • The probability of helping decreased as the
    responsibility for helping was diffused across
    more participants
  • In the case of Kitty Genovese, there were 38
    bystanders who could see each other staring out
    of their windows with some turning on their
    lights
  • Responsibility was diffused across all of them,
    with no one person assuming full responsibility
    to help
  • Kitty might have received help and possibly
    lived had there been only one person available
    to give help (i.e., call the police) rather than
    38!

62
Deindividuation
  • The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in
    a group situation that fosters arousal and
    anonymity
  • Deindividuated people feel less restrained, so
    may forget their moral values and act
    spontaneously without thinking
  • Diffusion of responsibility also plays a role in
    deindividuation because of the anonymity of the
    group situation

63
Group Polarization Groupthink
  • Apply to more structured, task-oriented group
    situations

64
Group Polarization
  • The strengthening of a groups prevailing opinion
    about a topic following group discussion of the
    topic
  • For instance, if students who dont like a
    particular class all start talking about that
    class, they will leave the discussion disliking
    the class even more because each student may
    provide different reasons for disliking the class
  • Each member learns new reasons for his or her
    dislike of the class

65
Group Polarization
  • In addition, normative social influence is at
    work
  • We want others to like us, so we express stronger
    views on a topic to gain approval from others in
    the group
  • For instance, students who belong to fraternities
    or sororities tend to be more politically
    liberal, and this difference grows during college
    because group members reinforce and polarize each
    others views

66
Groupthink
  • A mode of group thinking that impairs decision
    making
  • The desire for group harmony overrides a
    realistic appraisal of the possible decisions
  • Leads to an illusion of infallibility, the belief
    that the group cannot make mistakes

67
Groupthink
  • Examples of groupthink in history include the
    failure to anticipate Pearl Harbor, the Bay of
    Pigs invasion of Cuba, and the Space Shuttles
    Challenger and Columbia disasters
  • In the case of the Space Shuttle Columbia, NASA
    apparently ignored safety warnings from
    engineers about possible technical problems

68
How We Think about Our Own and Others Behavior
  • How We Make Attributions
  • How Our Behavior Affects Our Attitudes

69
Attribution
  • The process by which we explain our own behavior
    and the behavior of others
  • That is, what do we think are the causes of our
    behavior and the behavior of others?

70
How We Make Attributions
  • An internal attribution means explaining behavior
    in terms of a persons disposition/personal
    characteristics
  • An external attribution means explaining behavior
    in terms of a persons circumstances/situation
  • For example, if you are sitting in the airport
    and see someone trip and fall over their own two
    feet, you might think What a idiot meaning the
    persons disposition lead him to trip
  • However, if you think He must be late for a
    flight, you are making an external attribution

71
Attributions for the Behavior of Others
Fundamental Attribution Error
Self-FulfillingProphecy
72
Attributions for the Behavior of Others
  • The fundamental attribution error is the tendency
    as an observer to overestimate internal
    dispositional influences and underestimate
    external situational influences upon others
    behavior
  • More simply, we tend to ignore external factors
    when explaining the behaviors of other people
  • May have played a role in Milgrams results The
    teachers figured that if the learner was stupid,
    he deserved the shocks

73
Attributions for the Behavior of Others
  • Placing such blame on victims involves the
    just-world hypothesis, the assumption that the
    world is just and that people get what they
    deserve
  • Helps justify cruelty to others
  • The primacy effect is partially responsible for
    the fundamental attribution error
  • In the primacy effect, early information is
    weighted more heavily than later information in
    forming an impression of another person
  • Be careful of the initial impression you make on
    others!

74
Attributions for the Behavior of Others
  • In the self-fulfilling prophecy, our expectations
    of a person elicit behavior from the person that
    confirms our expectations
  • For instance, if you think a person is
    uncooperative, you may act in an uncooperative
    way in your interactions with the person
  • Given your uncooperative behavior, the person
    responds by being uncooperative, confirming your
    expectations

75
Attributions for Our Own Behavior
Actor-Observer Bias
Self-Serving Bias
76
Actor-Observer Bias
  • The tendency to attribute our own behavior to
    situational influences, but to attribute the
    behavior of others to dispositional influences
  • As actors, our attention is focused on the
    situation
  • But as observers, our attention is focused on the
    individual, hence why we make the fundamental
    attribution error

77
Self-Serving Bias
  • The tendency to make attributions so that one can
    perceive oneself favorably
  • As actors, we tend to overestimate dispositional
    influences when the outcome of our behavior is
    positive and to overestimate situational
    influences when the outcome of our behavior is
    negative
  • In short, we take credit for our successes but
    not for our failures

78
Self-Serving Bias
  • We tend to see ourselves as above average when
    we compare ourselves to others on positive
    dimensions such as intelligence and
    attractiveness
  • However, such traits tend to be normally
    distributed with half of us below average and
    half of us above average

79
Self-Serving Bias
  • Self-serving bias can also influence our
    estimates of the extent to which other people
    think and act as we do

FalseConsensusEffect
False Uniqueness Effect
80
False Consensus Effect
  • The tendency to overestimate the commonality of
    ones opinions and unsuccessful behaviors
  • For instance, if you like a certain type of food,
    you overestimate how many people also like that
    type of food
  • Or, if you failed an important exam, you tend to
    overestimate the number of your classmates who
    also failed the exam

81
False Uniqueness Effect
  • The tendency to underestimate the commonality of
    ones abilities and successful behaviors
  • For instance, if you are a good golfer, you think
    that few people are, thus allowing you to feel
    good about yourself

82
When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes
  • Attitudes are evaluative reactions (positive or
    negative) toward things, events, and other people
  • Our attitudes tend to guide our behavior when the
    attitudes are ones that we feel strongly about,
    when we are consciously aware of our attitudes,
    and when outside influences on our behavior are
    not strong

83
When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes
Festingers Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Bems Self-Perception Theory
Impact of Role Playing
84
Festinger and Carlsmiths Study
  • In the study, participants completed an
    incredibly boring task, such as turning pegs on a
    pegboard or organizing spools in a box, dumping
    them out, and organizing them again
  • After the hour is over, the experimenter explains
    to you that the experiment is concerned with the
    effects of a persons expectations on their task
    performance and that you were in the control
    group
  • The experimenter is upset because his student
    assistant has not shown up for the next
    experimental session
  • She was supposed to pose as a student who just
    participated in the experiment and tell the next
    participant who is waiting outside that this
    experiment was really enjoyable

85
Festinger and Carlsmiths Study
  • The experiment asks the participant to play the
    role of the student assistant, and he will pay
    you either 1 or 20 for telling the next
    participant (actually a confederate of the
    experimenter) how enjoyable and interesting the
    experiment was
  • After telling the supposed participant how great
    the experiment was, another person who is
    studying students reaction to experiments asks
    you to complete a questionnaire about how much
    you enjoyed the earlier experimental tasks

86
Festinger and Carlsmiths Study
  • Participants who were paid only 1 rated the
    boring tasks as fairly enjoyable, whereas
    participants who were paid 20 rated the boring
    tasks as boring
  • Possible explanations of this counterintuitive
    finding

87
Festingers Cognitive Dissonance Theory
  • Proposes that people change their attitudes to
    reduce the cognitive discomfort created by
    inconsistencies between their attitudes and their
    behavior
  • For instance, people who smoke, an unhealthy
    behavior known to most everyone, may feel
    cognitive discomfort because of the inconsistency
    between their behavior and their
    attitude/knowledge that smoking is bad for their
    health
  • According to cognitive dissonance theory, many
    smokers change their attitude, so that it is no
    longer inconsistent with their behavior

88
Festingers Cognitive Dissonance Theory
  • So why did participants paid only 1 indicate on
    the survey they enjoyed the experiment more than
    participants paid 20?
  • The people paid 1 lied and said the task was
    interesting to another person
  • Thus, there was an inconsistency between their
    actions (saying the experiment was interesting
    without any significant external incentive) and
    their attitudes (the experiment was in reality
    quite boring)
  • To reduce this inconsistency, these participants
    changed their attitude to be that the tasks were
    fairly enjoyable
  • Now the inconsistency and resulting dissonance
    are gone

89
Festingers Cognitive Dissonance Theory
  • A key aspect of cognitive dissonance is that we
    dont suffer dissonance if we have sufficient
    justification for our behavior (i.e., the
    participants paid 20 in the study had perfectly
    good reason to be inconsistent but not experience
    dissonance) or our behavior was coerced
  • Cognitive dissonance theory also says that once
    you make a tough choice, you will strengthen your
    commitment to that choice in order to reduce
    cognitive dissonance

90
Bems Self-Perception Theory
  • Proposes that when we are unsure of our attitudes
    we infer them by examining our behavior and the
    context in which it occurs
  • We have no dissonance to reduce, but are merely
    engaging in the normal attribution process
  • For instance, in the experiment, people would
    examine their behavior (e.g., lying for 1) and
    infer the task must have been fairly interesting
    or else they would not have lied for only that 1
  • Self-perception theory contends that we dont
    change our attitude because of our behavior, but
    rather we use our behavior to infer our attitude

91
Cognitive Dissonance vs. Self-Perception
  • Cognitive dissonance theory is a better
    explanation for behavior that contradicts
    well-established attitudes
  • Such behavior creates mental discomfort, and we
    change our attitudes to reduce it
  • Self-perception theory explains situations in
    which our attitudes are not well-defined
  • We infer our attitudes from our behavior

92
The Impact of Role-Playing
  • A role is a social position that carries with it
    expected behaviors from the person in it
  • Each role is defined by the socially expected
    pattern of behavior for it, and these definitions
    impact both our behavior and our attitudes

93
Zimbardos Study
  • In a now-classic study, Zimbardo (1970) recruited
    male college students to participate in a study
    held in the renovated basement of the Stanford
    University psychology building, renovated to be
    a mock prison
  • He chose the most emotionally-stable volunteers
    for the study and then randomly assigned them to
    play the roles of prisoner and prison guard
  • The guards were given uniforms and billy clubs
  • The prisoners were locked in cells and had to
    wear humiliating clothing (smocks with no
    undergarments)

94
Zimbardos Study
  • The participants began to take their respective
    roles too seriously
  • After only one day of role playing, the guards
    started treating the prisoners cruelly
  • Some of the prisoners rebelled, and others began
    to break down
  • Role-playing quickly became reality
  • The situation deteriorated so much that Zimbardo
    had to stop the study after only 6 days
  • Even these emotionally stable, normal young
    educated men were vulnerable to the power of
    the situational roles
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